Eating the world’s hottest pepper

Jackson Landers at Slate documents the first time he ate a scorpion pepper, currently ranked as the world’s hottest, with a Scoville rating of 1.4 million (jalapenos are about 5,000, crushed cayenne at 30,000, ghost peppers at 1 million). Short version:

The scorpion pepper creeps up on you, getting incrementally fiercer over the course of a minute or so until your whole face feels like it has turned into lava. At roughly the same moment, Jenny and I both leapt off of my couch and ran for the kitchen. We madly mixed together everything that was supposed to help mitigate the effect of spicy food: milk, oil, and sugar, poured haphazardly first into our cups and then directly into our mouths. The combination provided momentary relief.

Oh yeah the habbies creep up on you Willie. And not just in your mouth. Used some to make some jerk one day. After what I thought was a good hand washing I had a bathroom break. After about 1/2 hour of a tingle growing into a full on burn I was in the shower. Cold water? No help. Soap? Nothing. Baby oil was the only thing that made it subside. My wife thought it was a hoot.